posted 05-20-2008 12:55 PM            

A possible suspect is Robert Makepeace I of Newcastle but none of his marks given in Gill match. However none of these earlier than one sourced from the copper plate for 1728-30 although he was certainly active before that date .

Is this an unrecorded mark of his or can any one make any suggestions ?

posted 05-20-2008 03:38 PM            

Styles in buckles are very hard to pin down as they frequently went "retro" and there are a lot of out of period buckles to confuse.
Total absence of date letters before 1790 in London, although Birmingham provided them dutifully from 1773 on what comparatively few examples we have. Very few examples of any shoe buckles prior to 1756 - they were nearly all melted down, although many stock (neck) buckles survive from the 1740 -1756 period. Not being seen, except by one's valet, they escaped the normal scrap and replace for fashion syndrone.

posted 05-21-2008 04:25 AM            

It would certainly work with tongs and nips where, like buckles, you do not get a date letter until the late eighteenth century.

But spoons, nips and tongs all were items shared with your peers - and presumably you took care over the style and elegance of your proof and pride of ownership. With buckles only yourself and your servants saw the initials (unless you were going to bed with someone) so virtually all initials were in block form on buckles. These do seem early though!

A very common misconception on shoe buckle dating by size exists. The fallacy is "the smaller the buckle, the older it is".

It is true to say that really big shoe buckles are unlikely to be earlier than 1770 ( and very, very , few survive of the real Artois buckles pre 1786 as they were predominately for the upper classes and would normally be quickly scrapped as fashion changed).

But the reverse , that small shoe buckles are early is totally incorrect. Ladies, children, and old-fashioned men all wore small buckles well into the 1780's.Also the 1770's styles made a comeback in the 1790's (and even later in Scotland)with what can only be described as gross versions of the styles popular in small sizes twenty years earlier.

Also in the very late 18th century, when the use of shoe buckles for normal wear had almost vanished, there remained their compulsory use for court, and by extension , formal occasions. This produced a small shoe buckle, normally with an Eley chape usually supplied by James Atkins or his successor, Charkles Rawlins (later Rawlins and Summer).

posted 05-21-2008 09:15 AM            

All this gives no help in dating but does mean that it was done early or provincially?

The E mirror E seems to me to be a cipher i.e. double E?

posted 05-21-2008 06:57 PM            

When I said I would not expect to see this style of initialing much beyond the 1740s I did not mean this to apply to block initials in general (they can be found up to the 1760s if not beyond) but to the details of the style such as the exaggerated cross strokes to the top and bottom of the letters. However, that could in this case simply be because the engraving is so small that what was meant as tiny detail seems proportionately larger. The scale of the crossbar for the same reason is probably what threw us over the barred I before Swarter pointed it out.

I have had a quick look through some of my collection and the barred I seems to occur less frequently than a straightforward one, but I found examples of the barred form from 1694 and 1737. Of course, this is just the accident of what I happen to have, not evidence of the earliest and latest date. However at the very least it does not contradict conclusions about the date of the buckle.